Time for Christian charity

This is a particularly hard year for many area families as they approach Christmas.

Although the Great Recession began last fall, its full effects have been felt this year.

That's why it is particularly important that those who can do so help contribute to various programs to aid the needy this fall. There are families that have never fallen into that category before, but find themselves facing a very bleak holiday season without your help.

The Cheer Basket Project, which used to provide food for those families, no longer is active. Instead of one major food-collection effort, there are half a dozen being launched around the community, all designed to stock the already depleted shelves of local food pantries. Each deserves your support.

The Chamber's Giving Tree program is pulling back on its former emphasis of providing toys and gifts for the holidays, this year choosing to emphasize providing adequate clothing for needy families during the winter.

That shift in emphasis is putting a huge burden on the Shop With A Cop program, which has seen applications rise from a little over 100 children each year to nearly 400 already. Yet available funding and manpower will probably force them to choose the 100 or so children most in need. Liberty Christian Fellowship also is working to provide some toys to children, serving as a distribution point for the Marine's Toys for Tots program, but there are significant limits to how much they will have available this season.

As a result, increasingly the burden is falling on the traditional organizations that work to aid the poor -- the area's churches. Contact your church's office to find out how you can help.

In the end, it comes down to each of us, individually, to support these programs and to reach out ourselves to someone we know who needs our help and to offer what we can, no matter how small. Every little bit will help this season.

It truly is better to give than to receive, and this Christmas will be a true test of our Christian charity.

-- Kelly Everitt